"The Middle East and North Africa region is the most water-scarce region in the world, and based on current World Bank current estimates, water availability in the region is expected to fall by half by 2025 and will have reached absolute water scarcity by 2050. According to the Washington-based bank, the region is home to 6.3 percent of the world's population yet it has just 1.4 percent of the world's renewable fresh water. With rapid urbanization taking place across the Middle East and huge investments being made in infrastructure together with a parallel growth in population, water security has been boosted up the agenda. About two-thirds of the Middle East and North Africa's water requirements are currently supplied through desalination. This is not an option that can be sustained in the long-term due to a lack of rivers in the region and no existing technologies which meet the region's rising demand for fresh water."

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